With the lifting of two moratoria on genetically modified crops in Australia recently, so did the inevitably polarised debate take off. Those for and against are unlikely to change their minds and, unfortunately, some scientists are now afraid to speak theirs.

Progen's vice president of R&D, Robert Don, is leaving the company to take up the "job of a lifetime" developing drugs for neglected diseases that affect developing countries in Africa, Asia and the Americas.

Experts from business, politics, food, farming and development agreed on Saturday to the basis for an ambitious review of how science can help some 800 million chronically undernourished people in the developing world.